Every high-volume bar batches. The rooms that do it well are the ones that understand which parts of a drink survive sitting in a bottle and which parts don't.
Batch the stable half
Spirits, liqueurs, sugars and non-volatile modifiers are stable. They will taste identical in six hours. Batch them together at service ratio, label them, refrigerate them, and pour them as a single ingredient.
Citrus is the argument. Hand-squeezed juice starts oxidising within an hour or two. The top notes dull, the acidity rounds off, and by the end of a Saturday your last margarita is a different drink from your first. This is why traditional wisdom says never batch citrus.
Cold-pressed, HPP-treated juice changes that calculation. Because it was never heat-damaged and never exposed to oxygen during processing, it holds far longer in a sealed batch than fresh-squeezed does. You can batch it. You just still shouldn't pre-dilute it.
Never batch these three things
- Dilution. Water is not an ingredient you add in advance; it's a texture you create at the moment of service. Pre-dilute and by hour three you're serving something thin.
- Carbonation. Anything sparkling goes in at the glass, always, and gets one gentle lift with a bar spoon, never a stir.
- Aeration. The foam on an espresso martini or a sour is created by the shake. It cannot be stored. Shake each order individually, even if everything else is batched.
Batch what time can't change. Build what time destroys.
A working ratio
For a margarita program: batch one part Arté Margarita Mixer to one part tequila reposado, hold it refrigerated in a labelled bottle, and shake four ounces to order over ice. Your bartender is now making a two-step drink instead of a five-step drink, and the balance is identical on the four hundredth as on the first.
For espresso martinis: batch one part vodka to one and a quarter parts Arté Espresso, hold cold, and shake each order for a full fifteen seconds. The batch saves you the build. The shake gives you the crema. Don't trade the second for the first.